Ethan finds a bomb planted in his car, which leads him to question people he thought he could trust; Kate and Harold discuss their fertility issues with Nurse Pam; Ben's relationship with Amy heats up.

Jason Hughes

Rob Owen

The question becomes will more screen time allow the Big Secret to make sense? That will determine if the whole of Wayward Pines is ultimately worth watching. If nothing else, the first five hours are at turns intriguing, mysterious, engrossing and spooky.

Kristi Turnquist

Tom Long

It’s not going anywhere you’d likely suspect, and the big reveal episodes have a lot of explaining to do, but this hyper-paranoid, time-twisting and addictive show is actually laying a foundation for something. How that something eventually plays out remains a question, but the ride there is an undeniable kick.

Ed Bark

Matt Zoller Seitz

It's TV designed for people who watch a lot of TV and know a lot of TV, and aren't necessarily coming into Wayward Pines to be stunned by its novelty but to see if a group of talented actors, writers, and filmmakers can stitch a crazy quilt of influences into something coherent and pleasurable. They do. But it takes a while.

Mary McNamara

Equally happy to consider the joys of rum raisin and the need for ritualized violence, Wayward Pines veers, at times, toward a self-consciousness one might call Fever Dream Camp. But mostly it's good, creepy fun, a round-the-fire story of a series that may turn out to be about something bigger than it seems.

Ken Tucker

I’m not sure if Wayward Pines can sustain its mood and outlandish occurrences for the full length of its 10-episode season, but I guess I’m intrigued enough to keep track of what’s going on in that damp, puzzling little town.

Maysa Hattab

Brian Tallerico

At first, Wayward Pines doesn’t quite have the visual personality to match its narrative oddity.... Be patient. The repetition fades away as writer Chad Hodge (who adapted his books) starts working more with answers than questions, and even the already-strong cast improves.

Tim Goodman

If you’re up for something completely different that may end up imploding just as easily as it could be riveting, then make the commitment. Wayward Pines is filled with enough guest stars and gear shifts to never stay in the same place and thus remain interesting, though not always logical or satisfying.

Joanne Ostrow

Brian Lowry

Everything about Wayward Pines is tense and spooky from the get-go (Chad Hodge adapted the project for TV), down to the old-fashioned rotary phones, which certainly plays into Shyamalan’s strengths as a filmmaker.... That said, the cat-and-mouse game begins to become a bit tiresome in the later episodes (five were previewed), before the fifth offers a fairly concrete explanation regarding what’s going on.

Verne Gay

Jeff Jensen

Melissa Leo, Howard, and Gugino--who has the most alluring mystery--know how to work well in the murk. They pull you through everything that’s tired, tedious, and trippy and nurture hope that Wayward Pines will add up to something novel. Or, at least, just add up.

Liz Shannon Miller

It's a great premise; unfortunately, Wayward Pines makes a massive misstep almost immediately. Instead of keeping the action trapped inside the town, embedding the audience into Burke's paranoia and terror, the show moves between the town and Seattle.... Across the board, the casting is stellar, though it's Melissa Leo as the quasi-deranged Nurse Pam who's the stand-out, as her mercurial shifts represent the very best elements of the premise's potential.

Robert Bianco

The tone is ominous throughout in a show that provides its share of good jolts, including one built around the public punishment of a rule infraction that may stay with you for awhile. Unfortunately, subtlety appears to be among the many things banned in Wayward Pines--a series that comes at you weird and gets weirder as it goes along.

David Hinckley

Suspense-building requires walking a line, though. If you spend too long getting to the point, the bubble you’ve inflated starts to lose air. That’s close to happening a couple of times, which is too bad, because when we get to the reveals, we’d like to still really care.

Josh Bell

Alan Sepinwall

It's not fun enough while waiting for the explanation in the fifth and final episode I saw (there are 10 episodes altogether), and the explanation doesn't do a good enough job of justifying everything that's happened before.

David Wiegand

The main characters are not that interesting as people, but acceptably valid because of their situation of being stuck in a small town. Some of the secondary characters may not be drawn in too much detail but are more interesting.